Why Would God Use…

So ‘sometimes’ he doesn’t use “God’s time”? Temporal ordering of what?

Your question obviously has logical problems.

His own personal events – things that requires time. The point is that God can do everything we can do and we don’t have to resort to mysterious woo-wo we-cannot-understand-that-God-stuff rhetoric to force God into some incoherent notion of a personal God without time. There is no reason why God cannot use time too for anything that might require it.

Anything that sin can enter is not ‘perfect’ – please recall that he said that this creation was ‘very good’.

We differ. God does not require time to order his thoughts or anything else.

Your statement is incoherent.

Time is just an ordering of events. If He orders His thoughts then He is using time. I think you are still stuck in this singular absolute notion of time.

No. Just your interpretation of it.

No, we don’t, and nice of you to phrase it so graciously. We also do not have to force him to being dependent on time of any sort.

To you.  

God had/has disordered thoughts.
 

Really. How many more times, speaking of stuck, do I have to disabuse you of that notion before it sticks.

The doctrine of God’s simplicity, which I’m in the process of beginning to appreciate more, would mean that his thoughts are not necessarily particular. Like his knowledge of the future, it can be particular (if it suits his interest) or it may be simple.

Eternity . . . . .

I concede that Genesis quotes God as saying it was good, not perfect. But most (if not all) Christians believe that God (and only God) is capable of perfection, so He could have created perfection if He wanted to. Thus your point is that He intentionally left room for sin. Perhaps. It certainly exists, so it is either placed there by God, or is there because His creation was only in the biochemical and physical ways that allow for the evolution of our body forms and our minds within the principles of survival or reproduction advantages. And one such advantage must be the notion of sinful behavior. That is absolutely one component of what we now call free-will.

OK mitchellmckain, perhaps some have been found wanting in our choice of words. Rather than asserting “God is outside time”, we should have said “God has his existence outside our particular space-time …or quantum field or whatever our not-at-all-well-understood physical/temporal reality is.” :grimacing:

My point in responding to Adam’s original question was that, therefore there doesn’t have to be a contradiction between God creating “instantly” and an ancient evolving universe.

Goodness mitchellmckain! Do you have all the answers then, maybe a private hot line? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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It’s perfectly natural.

The only version of the doctrine of simplicity which I agree with is the one which explains it as follows:

There is nothing which is not God which makes God be God.

That I agree with. But your usage to make God incapable of particular thoughts is not one I agree with.

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Would you please be more careful in thinking about what’s being said.

I said particular thoughts are not necessary to God’s understanding, but he is still capable of thinking particularly.

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Yes. I think you are not aware of the reason God created anything in the first place, or don’t remember, because I suspect I have posted this before ‘within earshot’ of you:
 

Goodness mitchellmckain! Do you have all the answers then, maybe a private hot line?

I have not been assigned the duty of defending mitchellmckain, but I will (without his approval of course). In the course of a serious discussion of issues without absolute certainty of conclusions, it is reasonable (and desirable) to insist on logic and rationality. To do so does NOT mean that we know, or should know, all the answers. Demanding logic and knowing all the answers are not mutually inclusive concepts, just as ignorance and demanding answers are not mutually exclusive. There are too many examples to cite, but e.g. one may ask the logic of having an ability to choose otherwise about an action (free will), if one assumes it is already known by God as a future event…in other words if it is already ‘coded’ to happen. Similarly, one might ask the logic of believing that there is no power of prayer by asserting that God created everything to perfection, thus leaving no room to alter events or outcomes. In both cases, there is a logic used to express an opinion to a conclusion, even though there is no certainty whatsoever. I agree with mitchellmckain on this point (and many others, btw).

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I am guilty as charged. Please tell me exactly why God created anything in the first place.

I just did, above?

So He was planning all of this 13.8 Bya at the ‘big-bang’, and continued that thought through the first cell life 4 Bya? Then for the next 3 B years allowed for the evolution of bacteria, archaea and eukaryota to finally have not only a nucleus, but membranes around it and the cell wall itself? And then the organelles such as the golgi apparatus, ribosomes, plastids and mitochondria. So for 13.8 B years, He has done only the prep work so that in the last .00000724 of the universe’s existence, we are only now fulfilling Gods purpose and motivation? Surely you generalize (that’s OK) or use figurative speech, or expect me to understand your hyperbole (also OK).

Now I understand better michellmckains frustration with many who are reluctance to apply logic rather than simply claim that it is fruitless to attempt understanding. At the end of the day, it feels better if we can make it all make sense to us.